Dimension Gallery
by Cadaver Carnivorum
Summary: Erik gets to Shadow Gallery in a strange way. But it's not only this Gallery that the host can show his guest: V shows him plenty of them! A very crazy fic containing a lot of fun, odd stuff, lyrical moments and even some cute V/Erik! Watch your brain!
1. Prologue

A knock sounded across the Shadow Gallery. A loud, demanding knock of the doorknob.  
V headed to the doors, on his way putting on a hat – to take it off as a greeting for his guest. He stepped quietly, listening carefully. He approached the wide oak iron-coated arch-shaped doors , looked attentively through the keyhole, and only then, dinning the bar, opened the doors.  
At the threshold, gazing around worriedly, stood Erik. He distrustfully examined the black clad host, staring attentively into the good-humored mask, answered the courteous bow with a nervous nod and stepped in indecisively.  
- I bid you welcome, my dear friend, - V uttered happily, letting the guest in. - You can't imagine how happy I am to see you. Ah, well, it is impolite on my part not to introduce myself. You may call me V. And I suppose your name is Erik?  
The Phantom lifted an eyebrow, his face expressing a certain surprise. At least the half not covered by the mask.  
- How do you know?  
- It is a long and complicated story, – V played the oracle, leading the amazedly and somewhat suspiciously looking around guest to the rooms. - I'll try to explain it for you, – he seated Erik into a velvet armchair with an inviting gesture. - But your story shall serve as a thread we'll have to take to unwind its tangle. How did you get here?  
A shaven head stuck warily out of an adjacent room, curious eyes sparked in the darkness – just like a small beast looks out of a bush checking if there is a predator nearby. V waved to her.  
- Make yourself acquainted with monsieur Erik, Evey.  
For some time the Ghost hesitated whether he should shake or kiss the stretched out hand of this creature of undefined sexual identity. Unable to make up his mind, he made a light bow.  
- Evey, could you please bring a glass of wine for the guest. What do you prefer, my friend – white or red?  
- It's absolutely unimportant... I'd just like something stronger. - Erik grinned wearily.  
Having drunk a couple of glasses and becoming noticeably calmer, he told an extremely strange story about how a swarm of strange girls burst into his underground vault. They broke the iron bars and dragged Raoul somewhere, no matter how fiercely he resisted. They furiously tore away half of poor Christine's hair and tied her to a chair, vowing to inflict great torture on her when they'd have time. And, whooping and crying something in a rough, obscure dialect of English, they started chasing Erik himself. All he could do for his beloved was lead the fury horde further into the dark labyrinths to postpone the promised reprisal. They chased him into a dead end and encircled him, a multitude of tenacious hands with little dark claws reached out to him, tore his shirt... And suddenly the unnaturally soft and warm, as if woven out of darkness, the dead end wall which he was clinging his back to, desperately fanning the girls away with his rapier, opened wide and swallowed him. That's how Erik found himself in the abandoned subway catacombs.  
Evey sighed sorrowfully. In similar circumstances she had to come back under V's protection a couple of days after leaving the Gallery. While she was peacefully striding down a street, a gang of similar girls rushed at her, dragged her into a dark corner – and then the poor thing felt a burning gratitude towards V for his hairdressing misdeed. Managing to break free for sure by a miracle, she ran without looking behind to the very doors of the gallery, all in scratches and torn clothes. V listened to her attentively, shook his head and promised to rename Victory station and blow up the most conspicuous tunnels leading to the Gallery, and bid her never to open the doors to anyone.


	2. Chapter 1

- I suppose I shall not tell you anything, my friend. - V said and, waiting while some disappointment would show on Erik's face, ended mysteriously and promisingly: - You know what they say a picture is worth...

Saying this, he approached a wide and long, from ceiling to floor, black velvet tapestry. The one about which Evey asked once why it portrayed nothing, and V objected to her: "This time your powers of observation have betrayed you. It portrays darkness!" Erik, intrigued and a bit perplexed, came up to him. Picking the flap of his cloak, V stretched it behind the Phantom's back so that this black veil separated them from the rest of the Gallery. Then he made a small step forward and, catching Erik's inquiring glance, nodded silently at the huge black cloth. And they stepped forward. A bystander could see how blackness faded slowly into blackness.

The corridor, which looked as if upholstered with black velvet, stretched endlessly to both sides. One could identify this space as a corridor only by high, spacious rectangles, gleaming at both sides, fading in the perspective as if doorways. This place made a particularly strange impression on Erik due to the following circumstances. Firstly, the light from the doorways did not penetrate into the corridor and wasn't reflected on the opposite walls. Secondly, though V's silhouette blended with the pitch darkness, his mask was showing up white in front of Erik's eyes, like a lonely smile of the Cheshire Cat. Looking down, the Phantom distinctly, as if in broad daylight, saw his white shirt – but lower, where the black trousers should have been, his body ended abruptly, as if it did not exist.

- Welcome to the Blackness, – V uttered in the same tone he greeted his guest at the threshold with, - that connects the infinity of realities. Parallel and, due to the lack of a more appropriate antagonistic term, perpendicular.

From the very moment his body was absorbed into black velvet, as if into pulsing-warm, palpably thick fog, Erik decided not to be surprised at anything and not to ask anything.

- First of all, I'd like to acquaint you, my dear friend, with the danger you should know by sight and beware of, - the mask continued in the tone of a good lecturer. - Exactly the one you were so unhappy to encounter.

He went forward unhurriedly, which one could tell by a deafened sound of boots and the moving away mask, which flickered ahead, flashing like a now growing and now waning half-moon: V cast glances on the reality doors. Or, more precisely, on the small, contrast-white, softly glowing signs beside them. The doorway in front of which V stopped, was marked with a lightning to the left of it, the kind that stand conspicuously under an inscription "Danger, high voltage".

- Here you will see the most dangerous representatives of the kind that call themselves "fangirls", - V pronounced thoroughly, as if guiding a tour to a zoo. - It is hard to distinguish them at the sight from other representatives of this kind, mostly consisted of young lasses. The most reliable sign is their habits, which I now shall demonstrate you, my friend, in all their glory.

The view presented on the foreground of the panorama that unfolded to the one who glanced into the doors of this reality, really did not betoken anything good. From the nearest wall, which occupied nearly a third of the view, a portrait of Shakespeare gazed lamentably. The great playwright was so sorrowful because he sported an uneven, terribly neglected beard occupying half of his face, or maybe because out of his high forehead for some reason grew little crooked horns, or still because somebody had neatly given him two black eyes, - one couldn't tell for sure.

The other two thirds of the panorama was occupied by the view of a hall with a TV set, a massive sofa, two armchairs, a coffee table, a grand piano with a bench and an infinite row of bookstands along the walls. Unfortunately, the setting was by far not limited to these objects. On the stained table and on the grand piano lid crowded dirty dishes, everywhere there were scattered half-open books, empty DVD cases and the disks themselves, crumpled bright packings, rinds and peels. The apotheosis of all this Bedlam were three ungainly girls in jeans and bright t-shirts, jumping on the sofa and self-forgetfully engaged in pillow-fighting, which made white flasks float lazily around the room.

Following V's example, Erik stuck his head into the doors of the space – and regretted it right then, when his fine ear was attacked with laughing, squealing and Bloodhound Gang:

«You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals

So let's do it like they do on the discovery channel…»

The Phantom chose not to listen to the rest even to find out to whom and what exactly did these foolhardy guys propose to do.

- Ah, what barbarians! - Erik shook his head as if trying to shake the cacophony out of his ears. And an awful guess, as if a traitorous dagger, stabbed his heart: the visible half of his face froze as a pale mask of terror, all his body trembled and an agonizing moan: - What are they going to do to my organ?!

- You'd better not think about it, my friend, – V answered, perfectly calm. If he had made another meaningful pause, Erik would probably have had a heart attack. - I warrant you also have hundreds of doors – and hundreds other organs... and that there is a more pleasant sort of guests, – with these words the mask floated to an adjacent reality, and Erik's downcast torso sailed after it.

- Please let me present you miss Violet, - V announced at the door marked with an elaborate G clef.

At the grand piano's keyboard sat a sunny-curled wonder in a low-necked blouse, appetizingly upholding D cup amenities. Erik glanced into the reality with caution, as if a beast trainer into a lion's mouth. This experience, though, did not turn out to be in the least bitter: the musician's face blossomed with a blissful smile as soon as he heard a crystal-pure, like a mountain stream, without a speck of playing out of tune, "Moonlight Sonata". But the most surprising thing was that the "wonder" without any hindrance to her playing chirped into a mobile phone speaker which she pressed to her shoulder with her cheek, and meanwhile observed a fashion show on the silent screen.

- In fact it is just a mediocre specimen of a subtype called mary-sue, - V told to the amazed sightseer not without irony. - She is akin to the musical machine that had the pleasure of surprising you: she'll flawlessly sing and play to you any piece imaginable. But, unlike the machine, she'll often be unable to name its author. Moreover, she cannot uphold a conversation that does not concern herself and draws any talk to a monologue on her own exceptionality and inimitability. You'll be able to check this yourself: you shall have more guests of this sort than I have. And I can bet their names will begin with a C, - there was an impression that he flickered an eye beneath the mask.

They passed several other doors, peering into which, Erik noticed different variations of Evey: long-haired and shaven-headed, in a dress and in a nightgown, and even one chestnut-haired. V stopped near the passage, next to which was written - "Viola".

- It is my daughter's name, - V said in a soft and quite, a bit guilty tone. - Here she is.

On the sofa, half-turned to the lookers, sat a girl around ten years of age, wearing a plain white dress, slender and neatly built, quite tall for her age. Light, thick, a bit wavy hair streamed across her shoulders and fell onto the pages of a book she was reading by the light of a lamp standing on the coffee table. Light danced on her pale, fine profile, giving an impression that it was carved from white marble.

- What an angel! - Erik whispered, unable to hold himself. But however soft his whisper may have been, the girl lifted her head and cast a piercing gaze of big bright-blue eyes at him.

- Is that you, Darkness?

- Quiet! She has inherited my sharp hearing, - V explained, driving Erik from the door so that the girl wouldn't have time to notice their faces on the tapestry background.

- Why did she say "darkness"?

- In this reality I've died, – V said a bit sadly. - Neither she nor her mother know that it really isn't so. But curiosity is my sin and I once started talking to Viola, saying that it was Darkness talking to her. Lonely children often make up imaginary friends, and her tales don't make her mother suspicious.

- Why wouldn't you simply come back to them, – Erik asked with a trifle of reproach.

V sighed and started the explanations.

- A father is the one who protects and shows the way – that means, deprives the child of the freedom of choice. That's why I wish her to think she has no father and grow up strong, free and self-dependent. She contents herself with little and doesn't feel lonely since she has her Darkness, which listens to her and gives her advice. Advice, my friend, not directions, like a father! The latter will come back to her to train her when she grows older. And when he will be morally prepared to a hysterics her mother will make to him, - V ended, chuckling bitterly.

Vague grief showed in Erik's eyes: obviously this talk had touched on some sensitive strings of his soul. Unwilling to demonstrate his emotions, he turned away and pretended to be looking somewhere in the distance. But the omniscient V guessed everything and said sympathetically:

- There's no reason for sorrow, my friend: you will find thousands of worlds where happiness and beauty will smile to you. Look!

There was a screech of a glove pulled off and a burnt hand blossomed in the blackness like an exotic flower. V approached another door and slowly immersed his hand into it.

Erik watched with amazement how while penetrating into that reality the reddish, scabbed crust on V's hand was changing for normal human skin. And this sight filled his soul with rapture and hope.

The glove was back in place and the heroes headed further.


	3. Chapter 2

- Hmm... I cannot recall this door, - V uttered thoughtfully, noticing an unmarked reality. - Probably it has just appeared. Yes, sometimes new realities appear, and they must be explored. - with these words the masked vigilante stepped into the unknown.

Behind this door there was a room just like behind the others – but something as missing in it. There were neither empty mugs, nor open books, nor rumpled pillows – nor even dust on the grand piano's lid. Everything told that the reality was totally new and uninhabited.

Erik entered after V and, looking around, paced slowly to the middle of the room. Meanwhile V disappeared in the corridors of this new Gallery and strode fast through the rooms inspecting them for the purpose of finding something unusual. He made sure that everything was absolutely the way it should be and returned to the hall. While V was absent, Erik habitually sat at the grand piano and was now playing something soft and minor.

- What a marvelous, peaceful, untouched nook! - V exclaimed happily, sitting on the sofa. - At last I've found a place where I could read peacefully. I hope it won't get infested with fangirls... - leaning at the sofa's back, he silently listened to the music for some time. - Be so kind, sing something, my dear... - for a moment V lapsed into silence, pondering convulsively whether he had really said what he had said, and then added hastily: - ...friend.

Erik fulfilled the request with pleasure – seemingly not paying attention to such a familiar address. He sang in a low, soft, velvet voice, which, together with the sorrowful melody and the twilight reigning in the room cast an impression that this was not a human voice but the shadows exchanging quite whispers in the corners.

- You truly are an angel of music, – V said, when Erik, finishing the song, sank on the sofa beside him. He intended to say this with respect, but s caressing note somehow slipped into his tone.

- Then you are a demon of mystery, - Erik resounded with a vacant smile. - Lift a trifle the dark veil of enigma, share the grave burden of mystery with me! - "What nonsense am I talking? Could I still be drunk?" - the Phantom thought, astonished, and was just going to apologize and shift the blame for these ravings onto wine (he had treated himself to half a day before), but instead asked: - What happened to your hands?

But not only Erik's tongue turned out to be his foe. Suddenly his hand reached V's all by itself, the thin fingers wound gently round the wrist, tightened up with black leather. The other hand did not leave it unanswered – and the glove, screeching sadly, left its indigenous place. V wanted to free his wrist courteously, but couldn't even move it. This only assured him that he had really lost control of the hand Erik was examining sympathetically. "Probably something has happened to the motor nerve" - V supposed, not stirring his gaze from the fine pale fingers stroking gently his burnt skin. – "So pleasant... His skin is like velvet... Damn, what's the matter with me?!" - V shook his head to shove off the strange thoughts and moved away with all his torso to free the weak-willed hand. To be more precise, he intended to move away, but his body obeyed the order quite the opposite: he moved to Erik so their shoulders touched now.

- Well, it was a fire long ago... - V breathed, squinting his eyes at Erik's face. A blissful smile and a warm, a bit misty gaze. "How beautiful you are, still... - V thought and wasn't even surprised when his bare hand broke free by itself, crawled up and touched the clean-shaven cheek, and the fingers tenderly moved along a silky whisker. - I have to do something".

Erik, in turn, touched V's wig, run his palm across the soft locks, whirled one playfully. "Really, the voice of Darkness herself... You truly are Darkness incarnate..." - the thoughts floated and swayed like a haze in his heated head. His common sense obviously decided not to get involved with them and was wise enough to hide somewhere in the depth of his subconscious.

A soft melody came from the adjacent room. It became louder and louder, and soon could be distinguished as a languishing waltz. This was the jukebox which suddenly switched on – on its own!

V rose from the sofa and stretched his hand to Erik in a half-bow. He accepted it – and a moment later they were circling slowly around the spacious room. Their moves were smooth and gracious: both were unmatched dancers. V lead softly, but persistently; Erik, with the same euphoric smile on his lips, was peering fixedly into the blackness of his mask's eye holes and thought how strong and at the same time gentle was the embrace of this mysterious child of the Night.

Meanwhile V was conducting an argument with his subconscious. Lulling the weakening will of its master with an unceasing flow of pleasant thoughts and hormones, his Id was inducing him to overcome the useless complexes and succumb to lust, threatening him with psychic disorders and continuously quoting Freud. V objected, stating that he'd better sublime the unsatisfied desires with additional hours of training or exterminating another gang of fingermen than corrupt a virginal soul, making use of his temporary insanity. But the unprincipled subconscious, like if a giant octopus, ensnared his desperately resisting sense with its tenacious tentacles and slowly but persistently dragged him into its dark slough. V's breath became more and more raucous and broken, his heart was beating more and more violently against the bone bars of its eternal prison, he held the complaisant partner tighter and tighter against his wide and mighty chest... And suddenly all V's body stiffened, like a panther's before a decisive leap, he squeezed Erik's figure spasmodically so that the latter extorted a poignant moan and almost choked, - and reached desperately for the wall with the black tapestry. He'd been waltzing in its direction all the time, trying to catch this vile, imperious reality off guard.

So, the two masked gentlemen dashed out into the black corridor, and V managed to twist so that he'd ram into the opposite wall not Erik but his own shoulder. Happily the wall turned out to be quite soft and resilient. The vigilante hurried to let the Phantom out of his tight grip – but the latter regained his senses earlier. An awkward silence hung in the air.

- What's happened? - Erik inquired, giving V a bit wild look and immediately moving away. - I can't recall anything... and my head is aching as if I'm having a hangover.

"Say thank you that it's just the head..." - V chuckled bitterly and answered a bit guiltily: - I beg your pardon: I had to resort to violence to free us from this trap. This was one of the realities that can inflict a sort of... hypnotic influence. Unfortunately, I know almost nothing about it, – here he resorted to what is called white lie. - I can only warn you: if in one of your realities you feel some, ahem, strange propensity to Raoul – leave that reality as soon as possible.

With these words V moved his glance from the perplexed Phantom to the ill-fated door, drew one of his daggers and with a sweeping gesture drew a sign beside it on the fabric of the blackness – a vertical line inclining to the right.


	4. Chapter 3

And again – the way through the endless black corridor. Silence was still hanging between the heroes, like voltage between electrodes. V's figure moved ahead, completely dispersed in the darkness – Erik got some idea of his approximate location only by the sound of his footsteps.

Suddenly a remote noise of another pair of boots reached the Phantom's fine ear. The steps approached – and soon a white spot loomed ahead. It was growing rapidly – and in a few moments the bewildered Erik recognized V's mask in it.

- V? - he called, perplexed, stopping dead in his tracks.

The footsteps of the two pairs of legs immediately went silent. Now in front of Erik two absolutely identical masks grinned as if making fun of his shocked visage.

- I beg your pardon, my friend, - one of them uttered in a familiar amiable tone, notably relieving the tension. - I've forgotten to warn you of my... helpers.

- I've already thought about how difficult it must be for you to cope with all these realities on your own... - Eric replied thoughtfully.

- Quite right! - caught up the same mask, obviously belonging to "real" V. - That's why I use the help of my mechanical copies, which I've found in a strange reality in the very beginning of my dimensional escapades. I must admit I was surprised no less than you are. V unit number... - he addressed inquiringly the second mask.

- Two hundred seventy three, - it replied. - Heading to Victoria number thirty eight for the purpose of cooking breakfast, control checking of the train's combat readiness and finishing my revolutionary mission.

- Farewell, unit, - V nodded to his double, and the latter was on his way as if nothing had happened. His tone was calm despite the cold feeling of emptiness squeezing his chest. After all, it wasn't everyday that V had to face the thought that in some of the realities he'd be gone.

- And in what way does your revolutionary mission finish? - Erik inquired with certain spite: the news that V commits the most important part of his mission to a mechanical double somewhat drowned the vigilante in his eyes.

- Getting several dozen bullets into the chest and heading on my last journey in an explosives-stuffed train, - V replied, wishing to enhance the effect of the words with his indifferent tone.

Erik went serious and nodded understandingly.

- By the way it's a perfect means of ridding oneself from interaction with unpleasant cohabiters, - V continued in a more merry tone.

- But don't you feel sorry for these copies? They must be very exquisite work, - the 19-th century mechanics' genius remarked competently.

- Whether or no, I haven't experienced any lack of them. Come, my friend, I'll show you a storage room where they are contained. Quite possibly you shall find a similar one with your doubles if you search well.

The space behind this unusual door really resembled a storage room: it was a relatively small space with gray walls, wan lights – and tight rows of black-clad figures in Guy Fawkes's masks, standing still like soldiers in line.

- Thanks to the help of such units you shall never have to care about every lass settling in your haven in person. Just assign your doubles to the realities you would prefer not to visit, - V explained in a commercial announcer's tone.

- By the way, concerning my haven – how do I come back there?

- Just move along the corridor, – V waved his hand in that direction. - Your dimension gallery lies round the corner.

- In that case I dare not occupy your time any longer, - Erik made a low bow. - You can't imagine how grateful to you I am!

- Never mind, my friend! Your company is only for the best for me! - the mask tilted politely in the darkness like the reflection of the moon on the water glass through which a solitary wave has ran. - My doors are always open for you.

- As well as my Opera, - the Phantom smiled.

V followed Erik's white back in the darkness with a thoughtful eye until he disappeared round the corner. Then he turned and went back leisurely. Not without surprise he found within himself a feeling of tedium and unwillingness to return to any of the dimensions memorable to him. V's eye rested on the sweeping "slash" by the ill-fated door. Now he was alone and this reality could not do him much harm. A lover of self-searching, V wished to uncover the mechanism of this reality's influence on his consciousness – and, not thinking long, crossed its threshold. Unlike most men he was not afraid of facing the feminine side of his ego.

"You fool! - his subconscious was immediately at him, obviously serving as a conductor for this reality's voice. - You've missed such a chance!.. Admit it: all these girls are a pain in your neck! Some are chicken-hearted, others are silly, still others are mean-spirited, and still others are whiny, and even others are egocentric..."

Listening to this wrathful tirade attentively and patiently, V smiled, pleased, beneath his mask. It seemed that it contained the answer to the question that was torturing him: "What do I need after all?"

"He'd do for you a lot more than all of them combined, – the subconscious continued. - Understanding – that's what he could give you! Not silly sweetie smiles, not humiliating pity – understanding!"

"Eureka! - V exclaimed in his thoughts, seizing the thread of thought from the hands of the invisible but nevertheless extremely pervasive interlocutor and sweeping him aside as useless, like an inventor would sweep aside a fly, close observation of which had just put into his head the idea of helicopter. - A devoted friend, a smart interlocutor and an able pupil – that's what I need!"

He entered the study and switched on the computer.

"I don't know whether it shall work but it's worth trying... - V was absorbed in his own thoughts, paying to the subconscious's voice no more attention than people pay to soft background music. - I should not concentrate on the details and exquisite style – they do not lay a key role...Careful description of character is the most important... Intellect, talents, excellent imagination, warmth of feeling, courage, resoluteness, strong spirit, absence of stereotypes, exquisite taste... A sharpened sense of beauty... and justice, of course... Drawbacks? Well, say, hot temper... a bit carelessness never harmed anyone... and, of course, bad education – a natural thing under our regime, isn't it? His appearance, of course, must be beautiful. Just so it would be pleasant to look at him, not for what you've thought, - V replied ironically to his subconscious's remark. - The name? To be honest, I've grown tired of all those "v"'s, as if there are no other names... For instance, I've always liked the name James. Let it be so..."

V's fingers ran across the keyboard. He'd taken off his gloves for convenience.

"The fourth of November. Eleven o'clock in the night. Old Bailey's neighborhood. Quickly but carefully James made his way through the dark alleys, listening keenly and peering intensely into the darkness. He was heading to... - for a moment V went thoughtful, then looked critically at the screen, noticed the phrase "to his boyfriend" his hand had typed without his consent, changed it for "to his sick grandmother" and continued writing. - And suddenly below a kink he bumped into three Fingermen..."

- This should be enough, - V muttered, eyeing his creation. Then he closed the text editor, switched the computer off, went out through the black tapestry and quickly strode down the corridor, looking around. At last he found what he was searching for. Adjusting the knives on his belt, V stepped beyond the threshold of this unmarked, completely new door.


End file.
